Finn gave me a sidelong glance. "Well, it's the only part of the house that's even remotely level and clear of rubble. At least, this area is. The rest of the place is overgrown with weeds. "
"Looks like there's a lot of good places for Mab to hide her men around the courtyard," Xavier said.
"And a lot of good places for us to hide as well," Owen countered.
Xavier nodded his head in agreement.
I stared at the courtyard in the photograph. "How many bounty hunters do you think Mab has left, Finn? A dozen? Two?"
Instead of answering me, Finn pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and touched the screen a few times. "As of this morning, it appears there's about fifteen of them left in Ashland from the hotel records I was able to hack into. We took out five that night at Northern Aggression. Bria and I killed several more of them at the house last night, as well as the ones you took out in the woods. That thinned the ranks quite a bit. It looks like a few more have left town since last night, when Gentry turned in Bria and collected the bounty on her. Since you're turning yourself over to Mab, there's no use sticking around since there isn't any more money to be had from the bounties. Although rumor has it that Mab has paid some of the hunters to back her up tonight. "
"But Gentry hasn't left yet," I murmured. "She'll be there with Sydney. I know she will be. "
I'll take care of her as best I can until you come for her. The bounty hunter's words whispered in my mind. I wondered what she'd meant by them, what she was planning on doing. Gentry had already taken Bria to Mab, had already let my sister be tortured by the Fire elemental. What did the bounty hunter think she could do? Keep Mab from killing Bria outright? And why would she even bother trying? Gentry had gotten her bounty by now. Why would she care what happened to Bria after the fact?
Maybe it had something to do with my sparing Sydney that night outside Mab's mansion. Maybe Gentry thought she owed me something for not killing the girl when I had the chance. It didn't much matter what the bounty hunter was thinking or what she thought she owed me. If she stood between Bria escaping from Mab, then Gentry would die, just like the rest of the Fire elemental's men.
Finn continued with his count. "If I had to guess, I'd say that at least a dozen bounty hunters will be there, and Mab will have even more of her giants around the place as well. So let's say at least thirty men, total. Not counting Mab herself. "
I didn't say anything. We all knew exactly how dangerous Mab was. I was the only one with even a remote chance of killing her, and I didn't think I could do it. Not really. I hadn't been able to stop her elemental Fire from burning through my Stone magic at the country club. Only the giant stumbling into my path at the last minute and being able to use him as a body shield had saved me from being burned to death.
Still, this was it-the final showdown-and I had to try, whether I thought I could actually take out Mab or not. So, game on.
Since my friends were determined to come with me, there was nothing I could do but let them-and hope I did everything in my power to help them survive it. Still, I wanted to give them all one more chance to reconsider, one more chance to back out and save themselves.
"You're all bound and determined to do this?" I asked, looking at each one of them in turn again. "Because you don't have to. You don't have to risk yourselves like this. "
Warren cleared his throat, leaned forward, and stared at me with his dark eyes. "And you didn't have to risk yourself when you took on Tobias Dawson for me, Gin. "
"Or when you helped me kill Elliot Slater to keep him from beating me to death," Roslyn chimed in.
"Or when you saved me from Jake McAllister at the Pork Pit," Eva added.
It went on and on from there, each one of my friends telling me how I'd helped them out at one time or another and how they were going to repay the favor now-whether I wanted them to or not.
Xavier. Roslyn. Eva. Violet. Warren. Jo-Jo. Sophia. Finn. Owen.
One by one, my friends and family all spoke up and offered to do something, anything, to contribute in some small way, even if it was just watching each other's backs. I'd once lost my family, once lost everything that I'd ever cared about, and their simple words meant more to me than any of them knew or could even guess.
But when they were through, I pushed my emotions aside, shoved them into the back corner of my heart, and let them ice over. Because now it was time to leave Gin Blanco and her friends, family, and lover behind. Now it was time for the Spider to come out and hunt once more-for the final time.
"All right then," I said, my gaze dropping back down to the photographs on the table. "Here's what we're going to do. "
Chapter 25
At exactly six o'clock, just as the weak winter sun was starting to sink over the western sky, I stood in front of the snow-covered ruins of my childhood home.
The last time that I'd been here had been seventeen years ago-the night that my mother, Eira, and older sister, Annabella, had been murdered. The night that I'd thought I'd killed Bria, when I'd used my Ice and Stone magic to destroy our house. The night that Mab had tortured me by melting my spider rune medallion into my palms. Even now, my scars itched and burned at the memory, so much so that I had to curl my hands into fists to keep them from trembling from the phantom pain.
Needless to say, given all that, I hadn't had any desire to return here since.
Our house had always seemed so large to me as a child, and now, standing here in the cold as an adult, I could see the ruined remains of the impressive mansion it had once been. I looked at the few walls that were still standing, even though everything else around them had collapsed and crumbled long ago. I didn't remember our having been particularly rich, but we must have been because the house stretched out and out and out. Or perhaps that was just because it had all been reduced to rubble.
My childhood home looked untouched by human hands, as if no one had been near the place since it had been destroyed. Maybe they hadn't, since Fletcher had bought the land so soon after my family's murder. Besides, not many people wanted to linger in a place where such atrocities had been committed. Even people without magic could sense those sorts of crimes, in the primal way that animals can sniff out fear, danger, and evil in others.
The mansion-or what was left of it-huddled in the middle of a dense section of the forest right in between Fletcher's house and Jo-Jo's beauty salon. Ridges covered with pine trees surrounded the mansion on three sides before rising up and rolling away into the rest of the mountainous landscape. Snow-covered rubble stretched out as far as the eye could see, rocks piled on top of more rocks. But the years had taken their toll, and the surrounding forest had made inroads into reclaiming the area. A few small pine trees had sprung up in what I remembered to be the downstairs living room, while weeds and winter wildflowers wound like ribbons through the black, jagged cracks in the stone foundation.
As I stood there, what little was left of the sun disappeared, replaced by heavy gray storm clouds. In less than a minute, twilight cloaked the land, and snowflakes started drifting down from the sky. They covered the mess in front of me in a fresh, white coat of snow, hiding what I could see of the ruins.